


Nec Remedium

by Liron_aria



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5+1 Things, A dash of fluff at the end, Angst, Embedded Links, F/M, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Possible legal inaccuracies, Possible medical inaccuracies, Sick Character, Sickfic, Stanford Era (Supernatural), Stockholm Syndrome, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liron_aria/pseuds/Liron_aria
Summary: Five medical conditions Sam could have suffered, and one he didn't.I - MicropsiaII - Fatal Familial InsomniaIII - Delirium TremensIV - AbouliaV - Fibromyalgia+I - CIPA
Relationships: Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Lucifer/Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	Nec Remedium

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Put Sam through Hell? Why, the _slander!_ Besides, every single one of these was prompted by someone _else_ on Tumblr, so I am not at fault!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. The CW does.

**I.[Micropsia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropsia) **

Sam groaned and let his head fall forward onto the book in front of him, grunting in pain almost immediately.

“Don’t do that, Sam,” Jess chided from across the table, “You’ll only make it worse.”

Sam didn’t lift his head. "Why couldn’t I get the normal version of micropsia, with glasses or something?”

Jess laughed, light and free, and moved over to stand behind Sam. "Because, husband dear,” she said, leaning over to murmur softly in his ear, “You are blessed with the most beautiful eyes on the planet, and perfect vision to go with it. As awesome as the hot professor look would be on you, it would be a mortal sin to hide those eyes.”

Sam muttered something unintelligible and Jess laughed again, gently massaging the base of his neck. "Come on, baby, lean your head back. Let me see if I can’t do something to help.”

Sam groaned slightly as he lifted his head and leaned back against Jess. Her fingers were soft and gentle as she carded them through his hair, gently massaging his scalp. The lights in the living room were dim around them, the small fire crackling in the hearth the brightest source. Sam could still smell the faint traces of the croissants Jess had baked earlier for the PTA meeting, and he basked in the quiet stillness of the house now that his daughters were asleep.

"Alright, so tell me about the research Dean has you on so urgently that it gave you a stress migraine.”

Sam waved absently at the research notes covering the table as his eyes fell shut. "As far as I can tell, it’s some kind of water spirit. The best contender right now is a Nix, which is from Germanic lore. Basically mermaids and mermen who can lure people to their deaths in rivers - _specifically_ rivers. Mermen can shape-shift; mermaids are, well, mermaids. Supposedly, they can be identified by the wet hem of their clothes, but since it’s been raining cats and dogs, that’s not really a good marker.”

“Why’s a German monster wreaking havoc in Pennsylvania?”

“The town Dean’s in is, like, 90% German descendants. It probably immigrated at some point and hid out among its own people.”

Jess pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her husband’s head. “Mmm, I love seeing your big brain at work.”

Sam chuckled. “You’re not so bad yourself, Mrs. Youngest-Head-of-Neurology-in-the-hospital’s-history.”

A door slammed open and the the pain in Sam’s head spiked.

“Sam?”

Sam groaned at Dean’s voice and forced his eyes open. He was in a dark motel room, the humidity from the recent rain pervading the room and increasing the smell of damp and mold. “Migraine.”

Lucifer shrugged apologetically from his perch against the windowsill.

“So that’s why you’re sitting in the dark looking like a truck ran you over,” Dean said as he took in his brother’s pallor and tight expression of pain. “We’ve got some ibuprofen in the trunk…"

Sam grimaced. “That’s not really going to help. I’d tough it out, but I can’t do anything about the micropsia.”

“Micro-what now?” Dean asked with a frown.

Sam’s eyes fell shut again. “Micropsia. It makes things seem smaller than they are and fucks up my depth perception.” He gestured in the direction of the shattered coffee mug on the floor. “I’m a liability out on the field.”

There was a moment of silence before Dean sighed. “Guess I’m on my own on this one. I’ll handle the rest of the research, you, uh, you get some rest.”

Sam nodded faintly, eyes still closed. If he was careful, if he regulated his breathing, he could pretend it was because of the pain of the migraine, and not because of the pain from seeing Dean’s shoulders tense up even more from the strain of yet another burden.

He could pretend his eyes weren’t stinging with unshed tears, that there wasn’t a sob trapped in his throat at the thought of the future Jess never got, of the house and children and love they’d never get.

He was good at pretending.

Lucifer started whistling in the corner.

* * *

**II.[Fatal Familial Insomnia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia)**

Sam finds out because of Jess.

She’s in love with her Genetics class, and with her Immunology class, and her Advanced Proteins class - and basically every one of her biology classes that explores how the human body works. So when she learns about genetic screening, she immediately wants to try it.

Sam’s less keen, but when Jess turns her big blue eyes on him and begs for it as a birthday present, his defences crumble.

He doesn’t expect to find out about the FFI gene.

Jess lasts about ten minutes before the first tear rolls down her cheek.

It takes him all night to talk Jess down, to point out that the average age of onset is fifty, that there are ways to improve quality of life, that biological research is constantly advancing, and there may even be a cure by the time he’s affected.

Jess is working with a professor studying prions and genetics by the end of the week.

Sam calls his father and Dean once a week for nearly three months, leaving voicemails about what he’s found and begging them to get tested. If they’re lucky (and he hates himself for thinking it) he got the gene from his mother, and John is safe, while Dean only has a 50% chance of having the dominant gene.

Jess bites down on the instinct to point out that if either Mary or John had two dominant alleles of the gene, then Dean would automatically share the same fate as Sam. There’s no way to know for sure unless Dean gets tested, and Sam needs all the hope he can get.

In 2006, Jess is dead, John is dead, Dean doesn’t have the gene, and [a paper comes out](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781276/) about a man with FFI who extended his lifespan by a year. Sam has it bookmarked ten seconds after finding it, and spends months hijacking university networks to access all the related research he can. (He finds Jess’ only published paper from undergrad and stares at it for an hour, remembering how hard Jess worked on it, how many nights she spent on the couch with him trawling through research articles while he wrote his own essays, how proud she was when it came out in PNAS, three days before he got his LSAT score.)

Six years later, Sam can’t sleep and Lucifer’s doing his level best to remind him of the Cage. The doctors pump him full of sedatives that don’t work and only make the hallucinations worse, and Sam remembers with dread barbiturates only exacerbate the clinical symptoms -

Twenty-eight years old, and he’s going to die.

It’s more time than he ever thought he’d have.

It’s not enough time at all.

Cas takes Lucifer away, but the insomnia stays, and Dean dies before Sam can figure out how to tell him.

He’s sitting in the Impala trying to figure out what to do, if he should try and get Dean back, if Cas is really gone, when he tallies up the past months and realises he’s already in the last stage of the disease.

There’s no more time.

Soon he won’t be able to move or speak, and when he finally loses the ability to breathe, he’ll die. This isn’t the Cage, where Lucifer can just bring him back (though maybe when this is all over and he returns to the Cage, Lucifer will.)

Sam gets in the Impala and drives.

He keeps driving until he hits a dog, and he can’t let him die, doesn’t want to let his last act be a mistake. So he takes him to a vet, demands the doctors take care of him, and stumbles out with a sad smile when a feisty redhead tries to make him take it home.

He’s already losing the ability to speak and walk.

There’s no more time.

He parks the Impala at the side of the road and walks until he reaches a cliff. It’s beautiful out here, wild and open and free. The sky is cloudless and blue as a robin’s egg. There’s a note in the Impala asking that she be taken to a good home, to someone who will appreciate her beauty and worth, instead of sitting in an impound lot somewhere, gathering dust.

Sam takes one last breath, and jumps.

* * *

**III.[Delirium Tremens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_tremens)**

_There’s a man in the hospital waiting room, leaning against the wall. There are burns and scars on his face, but he waves away the doctors and nurses trying to help him._

_He gestures at a body of a tall man. “What happened to him?”_

_“Delirium tremens,” one of the nurses clucks sadly. “Poor thing, he was too far gone by the time we got to him.”_

_The man tilts his head._

*-*-*

The nightmares hit two days after he detoxed from the fight against Famine. He’d been good, he’d gone in quietly, let Dean and Cas lock him down without protest. He idly wondered if the detox would kill him this time, since he survived the last detox when Castiel let him out, and then God supposedly got rid of his addiction.

There was no escape this time, and he could very well end up dead by the end of it. He wondered if Lucifer would bring him back.

He made it through fine, though, and everything was… less tense than it was before. He was exhausted and dehydrated and sore, but that’s what he got for falling prey to Famine, he supposed.

When he lurched awake from his nightmare, he thought it was another trick from Lucifer, another way to wear him down. He could barely remember what it was, anyway, only that his heart was about to burst out of his chest.

The first tremors came in the middle of the afternoon, and he managed to hide it from Dean for almost the rest of the day. But when he dropped the gun he was cleaning because his hands were shaking too badly, there was no going back.

Dean was furious.

Sam tried to convince him for an hour that it wasn’t because he had gone back to demon blood, and then let Dean burn out his fury by yelling at him for the rest of the night. Dean slammed the motel room door shut and stormed away.

Sam woke up four hours later screaming, and Dean was still gone.

He tried to call Cas when the tremors wouldn’t go away, but Cas didn’t answer and Dean put him on lockdown again.

At least it was just in the motel room, where he could still do research.

At least it wasn’t the panic room again.

He’d hunted with migraines before, a few light trails and wavering peripheral vision wasn’t a huge detriment to him researching.

He didn’t expect the bugs.

He didn’t expect them crawling all over his arms, burrowing under his skin, and he scratched, scratched, scratched, but they _wouldn’t go away -_

He was going to die.

His whole body was shaking, he felt like he was burning up inside, this was Hell, he was already damned, _Lucifer was coming -_

He bolted out of the motel room, running, running, running, he could barely breathe, his heart hammering in his chest, he had to getaway why couldn’t _anyoneseehehadtogo -_

He screamed when the EMTs pinned him down, seizing and terrified.

He howled until his voice gave out, only subsiding when the sedatives in his IV dragged him under.

His heart stopped before he hit the ER bed.

The nurse called for a crash cart, but it was no use.

Sam Winchester was dead.

*-*-*

_The man sighs softly and shakes his head. “Oh, Sam. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”_

_Lucifer puts his hand on his vessel’s chest and the corpse suddenly jerks up with a gasp._

_Sam Winchester is alive._

* * *

**IV.[Aboulia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abulia)**

“Sam, you need to keep chewing, okay?”

Kelsey sighs as the man in front of her stares at her blankly, blinking slowly. Several long moments later, his jaw moves up and down, and he swallows.

Kelsey smiles encouragingly. “You’re doing great. How about some more?”

It takes another long moment, but Sam shakes his head. “I’m… I’m not hungry. Sorry.”

She hadn’t expected any different. “That’s fine, Sam. We’ll try again at dinner.”

Sam nods slowly and resumes staring out the window.

Kelsey bites down on a sigh and takes the tray back to the kitchen.

“Sam Winchester?” Matthew asks, coming up beside her.

“Sam Winchester,” Kelsey agrees.

“Bad day?”

“The fact that he got out of bed on his own is a significant victory.”

Matthew winces. “Very bad day, then.”

Kelsey sighs, her mouth curving down sadly. “Yeah. On the whole, he’s getting better, but it just breaks my heart, you know?”

Matthew looks over at the tall, thin man who sits limply on a couch in the rec area, staring out of the window with a blank expression. On a good day, he smiles softly, makes brief conversation, and even helps other patients. On a bad day, moving itself is a chore, let alone eating.

“So what’s his story?”

“Crashed his car after his brother died, doctors at Met Gen set him up with an MRI and found lesions, eventually got diagnosed with aboulia and depression and got sent over here. Dr. Fraiser thinks he may have been admitted in a mental hospital before since he picked up the routine here pretty quickly, but he hasn’t brought it up.”

“Rough hand all around, hunh?”

Kelsey nods. “It’s just… I saw him finish a New York Times crossword in the time it took me to make coffee and bring it out to him once. And when he feels up to it, he kicks ass at Scrabble. But most days…”

Matthew looks back at Sam, with his flat, empty eyes and no sign of the keen intelligence within. He wonders who Sam is, what he must be like in full health, instead of the lifeless man barely able to move without someone telling him to sit down and stand up and walk.

Sam just blinks and stares out the window.

* * *

**V.[Fibromyalgia](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354780)**

Nine years (a day) out of Hell and his everything hurts.

Sam stares at the wall of his room, trying to process everything that’s happened. One minute he’s kneeling at Lucifer’s feet, shredded and bleeding and yearning -

\- And then he’s lying on the grass in Stull Cemetery, staring up at a bright blue sky with white fluffy clouds.

He’s in shock, he has to be, because after seven hours praying and screaming and begging for Cas to help, for anyone to help, he doesn’t feel anything - no frustration, no anger, no despair.

No soul-deep, burning _need_ for Lucifer.

Okay, when it comes down to it, he’ll take hurting all over everywhere if it means he doesn’t feel the uncontrollable urge to call Lucifer ‘Master’ ever again. And the shock, for now, is almost a mercy, because when it fades, he’s going to hate himself. He knows he will, knows he’ll deserve it, knows that it’s just the way things are.

He feels… empty. But instead of foggy, he feels… clear.

He should call Dean.

But Dean’s out (hopefully) and that’s important. The minute he sees Sam, he’s just going to get sucked right back in, and that’s the opposite of what he wanted before jumping.

He should sleep. Sleep sounds good.

He stays up the entire night tossing and turning from the pain.

*-*-*

The pain sucks. It comes and goes, but it’s pretty much always there. He doesn’t have any bruises or broken bones or sprains or dislocated joints (and _oh_ , does he know well what those feel like) but his muscles hurt, his back hurts, and getting out of bed hasn’t been this much of a chore since Lucifer resurrected him from blowing his brains after he first found out he was a vessel.

Maybe it’s a resurrection thing.

God knows he never expected to escape Lucifer scot-free. (He never expected to escape at all)

The insomnia doesn’t really help; it gives him too much time to think, until his thoughts are running in circles and he’s not getting anywhere.

(Though the fact that he can think freely at all is something he’s grateful for)

He realises he can’t call Dean, because whatever’s up with him is most definitely supernatural, which means he’s going to be researching and probably hunting for a while yet. The fact that he’s been awake for sixty hours with no particular side effects or inclination to sleep is just another thing on his list.

He groans and hauls himself out of bed. He’s got a lot of work to do, and he’s not going to get any of it done lying in bed.

*-*-*

The pharmacy clerk side-eyes him when he drops about half a counter of Advil and Aleve and Tylenol on the counter, but he just looks back at her mildly because he just stopped the Apocalypse and survived nine years of the deepest depths of Hell, so he really _does not care_ about what anyone thinks.

He’s found there are a lot of things on the list of what he doesn’t care about, surprisingly including his building migraine and the bone-deep pain that’s reappeared in his shoulders.

Well. He supposes he feels a sense of annoyance, but it’s distant, remote. The pain is a burden, something he needs to work around to get on with his life, but that’s all it is. Everything feels remote sometimes, down to his sense of touch, textures not registering under his fingertips, only pressure. (He’s pretty sure it’s not nerve damage, because Michael liked to slowly burn away parts of him, trying to cleanse him, and this comes and goes)

It sucks, it’s a problem that needs fixing, but he’s not about to go off on a depressive spiral about it.

Shock’s good for something, as it turns out.

*-*-*

A month later, all the pain medication is out of his duffel for the safety of his kidneys, and he’s sitting in front of a television, watching ads flicker in boredom. He’s exhausted and aching and just doing research on his resurrections on the computer feels like a Herculean effort.

Not that he’s finding any leads on that, anyway.

He still isn’t sleeping, but his body’s not shutting down, so he’s rolling with it for now.

And then one of the ads catches his attention.

[Lyrica](https://www.drugs.com/lyrica.html).

Fibromyalgia.

Pain without cause or manifestation or reason.

His interest peaks and and he sits up, reaching for his computer. He’s got some of the symptoms, more than some, actually, and nine years in Hell could definitely cause PTSD, even if he doesn’t particularly feel it himself. Lyrica’s a prescription drug, so self-diagnosis is out, which means finding an actual doctor.

Which means going through the hoops of finding an appointment time, registering as a patient with the doctor’s office, insurance… it’s so _inefficient_. So tedious and messy. But his ability to research and hunt is starting to suffer, which means he has to find a way to resolve this that won’t backfire.

Doctor’s it is.

*-*-*

Turns out Lyrica is shitty expensive, and the doctor wants to do more tests before prescribing him Lyrica or any other useful drug like [Celebrex](https://www.drugs.com/celebrex.html) or [Savella](https://www.drugs.com/savella.html). He’s also got a list of alternative aids, like an exercise regimen and physical therapy, a psychological intake appointment to determine any psychological components, and a handful of relaxation techniques.

Sam drums his fingers on the table and contemplates his next actions. If he follows the doctor’s orders, he’ll be stuck in one place for a long while, or have to commute back for appointments. He can’t guarantee the duration of his hunts, or his research, which’ll make scheduling any appointments a challenge anyway. And there’s no way he’d cut any hunts short, not if there were lives at stake and monsters to put down.

He can up his own exercise regimen, using all the extra time his lack of sleep gives him, and go on his own way without any medical aid, steeling himself against the pain. He’s worked through his injuries and pain before, this isn’t that much different. As long as his body can withstand it, his nervous system can go fuck itself.

Or he can try a supernatural method.

Dean hates witchcraft of all sorts, though he’d had no problem using Ruby’s hex bags, but Dean’s not here, and Sam’s never had any great prejudice against white witches, even though he kept it quiet for Dean’s sake.

He schedules his tests and follow-up appointments further out than his doctor would like and heads out of town.

Three days later, he’s talking to a white witch about a variety of pain remedies from potions to spells to herbs, and a man pretending to be Samuel Campbell walks in.

A week after that, he’s in the middle of nowhere, carving his way through a nest of vampires while waiting for the potion in his trunk to finish steeping.

A little pain’s not going to keep Sam Winchester out of the game.

* * *

**I. CIPA**

“What about CIPA?”

Sam looked up from his laptop, his brow furrowed. “The porn-filter law?”

Jess blinked. She and Sam were sitting on their living room couch, surrounded by college brochures and notebooks, their laptops on their laps. “The what now?”

“The [Children’s Internet Protection Act](https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act),” Sam explained. “It passed as law a few years ago, basically forcing schools and libraries to install filters on what information minors can access to be able to receive federal funding. The American Library Association thought it was unconstitutional because content filters generally suck at differentiating what’s porn and what’s just naked people in art, or even sources for people exploring their sexuality. We talked about it in my cyber justice class.”

Jess perked up. “Oh! That thing! My cousin was complaining about it because "80% of the internet is now blocked” on her high school computers. But that’s not what I meant.“

“[Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain_with_anhidrosis)”

Jess smacked him with a pamphlet. “No! Why would you even -?” She held up a glossy pamphlet reading ‘Cornell Institute for Public Affairs’. “ _This_ is what I’m talking about. It’s only a two-year program, but it might not bankrupt you as badly as law school. Your major’s already Public Policy, this has a focus on government, politics, and policy studies.”

Sam grinned, reaching for the pamphlet. “Don’t you hate New England?”

“Well, yes. But Cornell’s medical school is one of the best in the country.” Jess turned her laptop around so that Sam could see the Weill Cornell Medical School academics page. “ _And_ you’ll be paying for all the extra jackets and sweaters I’ll have to buy if we go to grad school there.”

Sam laughed. “Sure, Jess. Anyway, get this, Stanford Law’s J.D. program...”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?
> 
> More information on all conditions via hyperlinks.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
